State of Emergency: A Greek Inheritance

Abstract

This PhD comprises a book and thesis. State of Emergency is an interdisciplinary work of travel, history, memoir and biography, with sections cut and summarised to meet the word count. The thesis has evolved through an open-minded enquiry into ways of re-evaluating the history and discourse of travel writing, challenging critical approaches and seeking a new way forward by using personal stories. It presents an original analogy for research, criticism and creative writing called ‘core-sampling’. State of Emergency demonstrates its practical application. State of Emergency follows the footsteps of my ancestor George Bowen, author of the 1854 John Murray Handbook to Greece, the world’s first stand-alone practical guide to Greece. Travelling with Bowen's Handbook and unpublished journal, I open up a contested imperial past, while witnessing an economic meltdown and migrant crisis that again thrust Greece onto the world stage, prompting urgent questions about national destiny, colonialism, migration, travel, and uses of the past. The thesis examines Bowen and his Handbook from historical, critical and postcolonial perspectives, and enquires into ways of re-evaluating the aesthetics and politics of travel and life-writing. It asks how to navigate Bowen’s imperial legacy and position myself as a travel writer. ‘Core-sampling’, a geological method of excavation, provides an analogy for an interrogation of self, other, place and the past, unearthing connections that can promote empathy and self-knowledge, and avoid pitfalls of imperialist objectification, and self-obsession. Analysis is drawn from history, anthropology, philosophy and literary and postcolonial criticism, and case studies include works of life-writing.